The Wicked
by shelleyrusalki
Summary: Bellatrix and Andromeda find a little escape during the Yuletide holidays.


**'The wicked envy and hate; it is their way of admiring.' ~ Victor Hugo**

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"What are they doing in there now, Bella?" Andromeda whispered, attempting to clamber at her older sister's arm that held her in place, her nails catching at her skin.

"Sshh... Keep quiet, or they'll hear us!" Bellatrix looked down through her thick lashes to frown briefly, before turning back to the window with a smile twitching at her painted lips.

Her knees began to ache from the kneeling, but it was a beautiful night, Andromeda noted. Snow blanketed the fields, and droplets crystallised upon the fencing which surrounded the gardens of the house. Her breath hung long and hot in the air, and she thought that her and her sister must have looked a most frightful sight. Both with their full-skirted gowns which reached the floor when they stood, and made in silk taffeta, pooling in an abundance of air around them. Such luxurious gowns with exotic details and trims, and where hers was the deepest purple, Bellatrix's was a most glittering emerald. They both definitely_ did _look a sight, wearing such money that was being snagged at by their adventure. They had been running through shallow rivers earlier, hand-in-hand, true exhilaration without much care for the world.

She began to pick at weeds and dead leaves that had clung and become trapped in the underlayers of her skirts, only to make her silk gloves more muddied. A sight, she hoped, their parents would never see.

The soft sound of music, with many mistakes and errors in note, could be heard from where they were both crouched in hiding, but it was interrupted and stalled by a loud crash from inside.

Bellatrix threw her head back and laughed, her neat raven curls followed and bounced around her shoulders. Andromeda managed to clasp her gloved hand over her mouth and drag her down to where she was, her heart thudding loudly at the prospect of getting caught, but it didn't take long for her eldest sister's shrill laughter to quieten.

Still smiling, Bellatrix then pointed for Andromeda to take a look. Her fear suddenly melted away, as she began to feel more interest in what was so funny. Her hand left her sister's mouth, and, gripping both onto the window ledge, she pulled herself up slowly.

The window was caked in snow around the corners, and the warm glow of the log fire from inside caused it to blur. Careful not to breathe further mist onto the cool glass, her gaze wandered into the inside of the room.

She counted five people, in total, all dressed in a rather strange, yet decidedly unjustly pompous, manner. There were two children, a boy and a girl, who were probably around the same age as herself and Bellatrix, dancing but losing their footing at every given moment. It suprised her that, the adults in the room, and especially the one with a baby atop her knee, didn't seem to mind this prepostorous display. Even the older man, who she guessed was the father, was the one who had been playing the piano rather poorly.

"Isn't it ghastly?" Bellatrix had crept back up to the window beside her, and she was biting down on her lip to prevent further outcry. "I'm glad that our betrothals won't have two left feet like that..."

"Are you kidding me? Have you _seen_ Rodolphus dance?" Andromeda snorted, and Bellatrix elbowed her in the ribs gently.

She knew that it was unkind for her to mock Rodolphus infront of Bellatrix, especially as Rabastan was no better. At least Rodolphus was tall and well built, where Rabastan was small and skinny. Andromeda hoped that her betrothal to such a sickly boy would not be finalised, but she had managed to convince herself that he still had much more growing to do. It was known, and therefore it was embarassing, that his blood ran thin despite his ancestry. She hoped that her mother's nose would turn up if real colour didn't flush to his cheeks soon.

"Oh, Dromeda, perhaps it _would _be better to make off with this one instead..." Bellatrix sighed dreamily as she looked at the fair-haired boy through the window, with her elbows on the ledge and her palms cradling her head. "I could teach him many things."

Andromeda looked at her sister with a shot of disgust, before seeing the feigned love on her face crack into wretching gestures and they both giggled hard behind their hands.

The boy was tall for his age, with dirty blonde hair, and freckles peppering his face. He had a nervous stature, as he tried to dance with the girl he was with, but he was smiling broadly with her as they fumbled. Andromeda waited for a stick to hit at them in every error, before realising that they didn't have to be perfect. Their parents were oblivious and humming in the warmth of their own festive content.

Yuletide was a tense time of year at Black Manor, the parties and the feasts with a select few families were always a stunning affair; yet play and emotion were tightly bound under the watchful eyes of their parents. She remembered when Sirius had cried at a sacrifice to the gods, and how Aunt Walburga had clouted him for it.

They were always dressed in the most beautifully inimitable clothing, like dolls to impress the adults. Andromeda remembered how much she had wailed as her mother had styled her hair into ringlets, which had taken two days in itself to set, before raking it all so hard into a styled up-do that she thought her scalp would bleed. Only when the adults were all dizzy with Dragon Barrel Brandys, and the finest concoctions of Daisy Root Draughts and Beetle Berry Whiskeys, did the children of the selected families find themselves able to have a little fun.

The children had all been playing hide and seek, when Bellatrix had snaked her arm around Andromeda's to take her from the Black Manor grounds to spy on Muggles. Their favourite thing to do together whenever chance allowed, now that they were both attending Hogwarts and both had wands for some small protection.

Andromeda needn't have even had her wand, as she had always felt safe around her older sister, who was only two years her senior. She was cunning, and very talented with her magic. Bellatrix was praised often by their parents for how much promise she showed at duelling and defensive spells. She was top of her class and always contributing a large share of points to the Slytherin house. Her magic seemed to surpass itself when she was around her younger sisters, which was proven when a silly group of Gryffindors took their chance at teasing her younger sister when she started her first year. It seemed, so far, to Andromeda, that she would not exceed her sister's skill with such arts, although there was much time yet. When Bellatrix was of age and could do more magic outside of school, she had promised to teach her if her abilities still lacked, in exchange for extra tips on Healing. Healing was the only subject that Andromeda had found herself to have a certain natural flare for... but Healing, being that it was extra-curricular and therefore seen as unimportant, did not impress her parents quite as she'd liked. It did, however, impress Bellatrix.

Andromeda looked to her sister fondly as she thought about this, and saw that her brilliant white teeth were chattering in the cold. Her eyes, quite like her own except for being a little smaller and heavy-lidded, were wide with interest at the spectacle before them. Her wand tapped briefly at the window, as she whispered something inaudible, and Andromeda watched as the shoe laces of the two children tied together, and they both stumbled and fell into the table.

Through their chuckles, she wondered if Bellatrix had thoughts straining her mind as she did when they went on these small escapades. Whether, there was a little... _envy_.. at the comforts they witnessed, being stamped out quick at every emittance by years of finely tuned cognition. Comforts because these people were ignorant. Comforts because these _muggles _and mudbloods alike were puerile.

_Isn't it ghastly?_

She was not sure that it was.


End file.
